


Priorities

by Tobyaudax



Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-11
Updated: 2015-04-11
Packaged: 2018-03-22 08:17:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3721741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tobyaudax/pseuds/Tobyaudax
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Videl can't seem to give up her heroic alter ego... even when little Pan starts to make her presence known.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Priorities

Midnight in Satan City. A warm breeze skittered papers along the semi-deserted streets. The pavement had locked in the day’s heat and was slowly releasing it in air-warping waves. It was the middle of Septembre and summer didn’t show any sign of ending. Great Saiyaman 2 was perched on the highest building in town, hunched over and breathing hard as she scanned the quiet city for criminal activity. The heat was slowing her down. The heat and her new, all-black, skin tight costume. The fact that she was a little more than four months pregnant wasn’t a factor at all; that’s what she told herself, anyway. She intended to fight crime for as long as she could move- a feat that was much easier ever since she’d learned how to fly.

She hadn’t told Great Saiyaman 1- aka Gohan, aka her husband- that she was going out. She certainly hadn’t told him that she’d been chasing criminals for the past four months, either. It was just something she had to do. Videl wasn’t the type to sit at home and twiddle her thumbs. She was an active woman and had to keep physically busy- the only fear she would admit to was having nothing to do. But she fully understood that she had to be careful, that she was carrying around a teeny, tiny person. She knew the risks involved, had done the research and sat through her mother-in-laws lectures and scare sessions. She planned on stopping before she entered her third trimester; probably before she hit six months.

When she’d first found out that she was pregnant, she’d gone from delighted to devastated within five seconds. She wanted children- she and Gohan both did- but she didn’t want one so soon. Not when she felt she was in her super hero prime! She’d gained access to so much power since the last Budokai and reveled in using it to help people. The crime rate had lowered considerably not just in Satan City, but around the world! She and Gohan were unstoppable… that was, until Gohan started university. He didn’t have as much time to be Great Saiyaman, what with his studies. But Videl hadn’t wanted to go to college- fighting was her life. She figured that, if she ever reached a point where she couldn’t be a super hero, she could always open a dojo and train the next generation.

Things had actually gotten much better the past week or so, especially compared to when she’d started. Her third week out after she’d taken the pregnancy test had been _awful_. She’d vomited on no less than five robbers and almost let a mugger get away because she’d had to pee so badly. Gohan had advised she put Great Saiyaman 2 away until after the baby was born- or permanently, as his mother had demanded- and she’d promised him she would. She had made a show of activating the costume watch and then taking each piece of her outfit off, folding it and storing it in a box that they’d both placed in the attic. Later that evening, though, she’d gone into town and bought each article of her new outfit from different stores. She still thought of herself as Great Saiyaman 2, but the media was calling her “the Ebon Avenger", or something along those lines. She was grateful that Gohan never bothered to watch the news- he’d recognise her fighting style in an instant.

A submachine gun went off towards the west end. Videl grinned and launched off the roof. She experienced a second of free fall as the baby kicked and rolled over, but caught herself in plenty of time. She mentally cussed the kid out the entire flight- if this kind of thing was going to remain unpredictable, she might get into some trouble. A few minutes later, she touched down outside a chain link fence that surrounded a trio of new warehouses. She entered through the small hole that had been cut, hissing when she snagged her top on one of the exposed tines. She’d always been slim, had an athletic build, so the baby hadn’t caused her to put on too much extra weight. But her breasts had slowly gotten larger and her midsection was filling out, as well. She didn’t look obviously pregnant. Yet.

Videl carefully unsnarled her shirt and slipped though into the yard. She glanced down and “tsked" at the large pair of bolt cutters left on the ground. These guys were in a hurry and that usually meant they’d be sloppy. She cracked her knuckles and her neck from side to side, then approached the closest building. Two flashlight beams shone like beacons through a few of the windows.

_What a bunch of amateurs._

She flew up to peer inside the warehouse, narrowing her eyes and avoiding the glare of the lights. The whole compound had been recently constructed and she couldn’t remember there being any kind of announcement as to what would be stored there. It was possible the military or police force were using it as a weapons cache, but Videl was certain she’d have heard something about it either over her radio or through one of her connections. There had to be something inside, otherwise these hoodlums wouldn’t be bumbling around in the middle of the night. …Unless they really were as stupid as they were presenting themselves. She sighed and flew around the building, finding a window that was slightly ajar on the opposite side. She thanked Dende that the hinges were well-oiled and opened without a sound.

Most of her crime fighting now was being done at night- likely one of the sources for her new moniker- in order to avoid the media, though they still caught the occasional photo of her or pulled footage from security cameras. She didn’t enjoy sneaking around, but found it necessary in order to keep the peace at home and continue to keep her husband and family from worrying. She realised she was being a little reckless, but the thrill and delivering justice simply had too strong a pull. Videl slipped inside and hunkered down on the catwalk, against the wall. The intruders’ lights had moved further down the warehouse so she was out of danger of being caught in a beam. She dashed down the walkway, keeping close to the wall and stopped a few meters behind them.

By the time she’d approached the group, they were making enough noise and had enough light for Videl to vaguely identify them. There were four- a short cat man, two men and a woman. All were dressed in black, though only the men were wearing ski masks over their faces. The woman had rolled her hat up while she was arguing with the others.

"-said it’d be _right here_!," she rasped. “I distinctly remember he told us the merchandise would be ‘under the last window, on the left-hand side’. Well we’re right there and the merch ain’t."

"I wish you’d stop saying ‘merchandise’ and ‘merch’," one of the men complained. “It sounds really corny."

"And I wish you’d stop being such a pussy," the woman replied with a snarl.

"Hey, c’mon," the cat moved between the two. “Let’s go back an’ look on the other side again. Maybe we just got turned around."

"And maybe we’re in the wrong building," the second man griped.

"Huh uh, no way. The boss said the _merchandise_ would be in the middle building," the first man said.

"You guys look around here some more," the cat instructed the woman and second man. “We’ll go back to the other end and double check."

The group split up and Videl was faced with a dilemma- which pair to follow? She was too far away to determine which of them had the gun, so neither duo was visibly more dangerous than the other. She opted to go after the cat- he seemed to be the de facto leader. She straightened from her crouch and quickly stretched, keeping her eyes on the cat and his partner. She remained close to the wall, catching up with her quarry in a matter of seconds. They were moving boxes that were stacked against the far wall and making way too much noise. She figured they had either disabled the security cameras or that there weren’t any.

"Got it!," the woman shouted, her voice echoing across the long space.

Videl rushed back the way she’d come. She could catch them by surprise- jump the woman and grab whatever it was they were after. They’d follow her out of the warehouse and she’d have plenty of space to take each one out. She grinned and leaped up onto the catwalk’s railing, then dropped towards the woman and man below. She landed silently between the two and had the box in her hands before either knew what had happened.

"Come and get it, scum," she growled, then ran for the door through which the group had entered.

Angry footsteps pounded after her, broken intermittently by the woman’s curses. Videl heard the Bizon go off behind her and sent a prayer up to Dende that whoever had the gun was a bad shot. She assumed he’d heard her as the spray of bullets went several meters wide. The door was actually two doors, one of which had been propped open. Videl dropped to the floor and slid outside on her hip as another blast of gunfire arced over her head. Once clear of the entrance, she rolled and came up on her feet, running towards the dark exterior of the building to the right. She slowed and stopped upon entering the deeper shadows and set the box down. She pushed it flush with the side of the building and blocked it with her body; her back squashed tight against the wall.

The group rushed outside seconds later and looked around; fortunately they’d either forgotten they had flashlights or had dropped them. Videl’s vision was reduced in the darkness and the lights surrounding the other two buildings and the distant perimeter weren’t helping her adjust. Learning how to harness and increase her chi hadn’t given her night vision, much to her chagrin. The quartet split up again- one pair to the left and one headed right, directly towards her. She narrowed her eyes and stilled her breathing; she didn’t even blink. As they got closer, she could see they were the cat and the woman and that the woman had the Bizon. They were within a few meters of Videl- she could smell their sweat and make out the outline of the cat’s whiskers- when the baby kicked. _Hard_. She was reminded that the life inside of her was one quarter alien; the kick doubled her over and forced a low “woof" of air past her lips. The muzzle of the submachine gun was in her face and she straightened, arms up and palms out. But she wasn’t beaten yet.

"Where’s the box," the cat demanded. Videl grinned- only the lower portion of her face wasn’t covered by her mask- and jerked her head down.

He bent to retrieve it and Videl watched the woman’s arm slacken as she observed. It really was too easy. One of Videl’s arms shot forward, palm flat, and knocked the gun out of the woman’s hands. Her other arm was lowered in an elbow drop to the top of the cat’s head. The woman struggled with the shoulder strap of the gun, but by the time she brought the Bizon up again, Videl’s fist smashed into her face. The woman dropped like a sack of laundry. Videl stacked the cat on top of her and dragged both further into the shadows. The others might have heard the commotion and could be on their way over. But, after several seconds of silence from across the compound, she decided that she had time to inspect the contents of the box.

It was rectangular, roughly half a meter long and less than half of that tall. She hunkered in front of it and slid her hand along the flaps. It wasn’t sealed and popped open with a small shower of Styrofoam packing peanuts. She carefully put both hands inside, shuffling through the peanuts until she felt something solid. There were many things, actually- she peered into the gloom at the small objects in her palms. The box was filled with packing peanuts and… cell phone charms?

"Put the merch in the box and turn around slowly," one of the men said from behind her.

Videl did as she was told, standing with her arms up again and open palms level with her head. She was ready to take on both men and for at least one of them to have a knife. She did not expect the man who had complained about the use of the term “merchandise" to be holding a standard issue SIG Sauer P226 in one hand and a detective badge in the other.

"Cell phone charms?," she asked, incredulous. “You went undercover for _cell phone charms_?"

"I don’t owe some wanna-be hero-type any explanations, but since we have some time before the rest of my team gets here, I guess it can't hurt to fill you in on some of it."

He switched a tiny flashlight on that was taped to the pistol and shone it into the box. Videl choked back a bark of laughter- the charms were miniature replicas of Mr. Satan. The heads were much larger, though, and she was shown why when the detective put his thumb on the base of a tiny afro. The head snapped free, revealing a USB drive.

"We filled a few of these things with… sensitive information. Stuff like the locations of weapons caches and known criminals that keep evading the law. This group-" he gestured at the two lying unconscious nearby. “Was infiltrated and these flash drives’ whereabouts were leaked. They’re on the list- though I can’t understand how they got away from us for this long. Pretty sloppy gang."

"Tell me about it," Videl sighed, then smiled at his frown.

"The only reason I’m telling you anything is because you’re under arrest, as well."

"Oh, sure. It’s not like I was here to stop a bunch of thieves or anything," she grumbled.

"You’re a vigilante. You’re the kind of girl thinks she’s above the law-"

"I work with the law, buster. I didn’t commit a single criminal act tonight."

"Breaking and entering, trespassing, stolen goods… That’s plenty to get you a good year or more in jail."

"I just don’t have time in my busy schedule for that," Videl said with a shrug. He blinked twice and looked like he was going to argue with her. She took that moment of hesitation to step into the range of fire, the gun now pointing harmlessly past her shoulder. Within the next second she had grabbed his wrist with one hand and his upper arm with the other, twisting his wrist sharply. He shouted and tried to pull away from her, but she held on and swung him around, jerking his arm up and at a very uncomfortable angle. She removed a pair of handcuffs from the pouch at her hip and, after a brief struggle captured his other arm, locking them together.

She left him sputtering curses next to the box of flash drive charms and blew a kiss over her shoulder as she took to the air. She flew as fast as she could away from the trio of warehouses, not stopping until she reached Mt. Paozu. Videl stood on the ledge of a nearby peak and yanked her mask off, enjoying the first cool breeze of the evening. She smiled as she looked into the valley at the pair of houses below. One was dark and silent, a wisp of smoke curling from the kitchen chimney. Gokuu, ChiChi and Goten would all be asleep by now. The other house was her’s and Gohan’s and she felt the bottom drop out of her stomach- a sensation that had nothing to do with the baby- when she noticed that the bedroom and kitchen lights were on.

_He couldn't know- he couldn't possibly have any idea…_

The thought was little comfort. Gohan was a morning person- the farthest thing from a night owl. He'd gone to bed not long after sunset his entire life. If he were awake at that hour- well past midnight- something had to have happened. And the most logical thing to Videl in that moment was that he had found her out. It seemed she’d have to give up the vigilante business sooner than she thought.


End file.
